The answer had come so quickly that it stunned her.

“Allie?” Miranda slipped out of the tent and wrapped her arms around herself. “You’ll catch your death out here. Come back inside and tell me what’s happened.”

Allie wiped the back of her hand across her cheek, hoping she hadn’t smeared the professionally applied makeup. She knew Miranda would stay outside with her and freeze, too, so she turned back into the tent.

Miranda led the way to an empty table far away from the glittering guests and sat Allie down. “How can I help?”

Allie shook her head. “I just needed some fresh air.”

“Calling that air fresh is like calling Everest a bump,” Miranda said, but her face was soft with concern. “I saw Gavin and Hugh Baker together. Did Hugh do something to upset you?”

“Hugh just wanted to talk about a movie.” Allie’s phone buzzed. After checking the caller ID, she looked at Miranda. “I’m sorry, but this call is very important.”

With obvious reluctance, Miranda stood, giving Allie’s free hand a quick squeeze of comfort before she walked away.

Allie answered. “Troy, who told you there was going to be a Julian Best movie set at Christmastime?”

“And hello to you, too, my dear ex-wife!” His voice was slurred, so he’d been drinking, and she could hear music and voices in the background. Not surprising on a Saturday night.

“Troy! It wasn’t me, so who was it?”

“I told you the last time. Irene Bartram did.”

“You didn’t mention Christmas.” Maybe Gavin had told Irene about the Christmas novella when they were together.

“Didn’t think it was important.” There was a short silence. “Why is it important?”

“And Irene told you to audition for it?”

“She set it up with the casting director, Gail something-or-other, who acted weird about the whole thing, to be honest. Kept asking me questions, kind of like you are. Where did I hear this? How did I know that? I didn’t want to get Irene in trouble, so I told her Gavin Miller had mentioned it to me when I was in New York. That shut Gail up.” Troy sounded pleased with the effect of his lie.

“Do you know who I’m working for right now?”

“How would I, considering you refuse to talk to me?”

“Gavin Miller. He thinks I told you all that. And he’s really pissed off.” Angry tears tracked down Allie’s cheeks. “Now you’ve managed to get me fired from two jobs.” That wasn’t entirely fair, but she didn’t care right now.

“Wow, that’s freaky, you working for Gavin Miller. So, what’s with his writer’s block?”

Allie had stopped paying attention to Troy as she tried to work out why Irene Bartram had used Troy to stir up all this trouble. “What did Irene say about Gavin Miller?”

“Well, you can tell that she’s pretty upset about the lack of another book, even though she’s sympathetic to his creative issues. All us artistic types have those problems sometimes.” Allie rolled her eyes when Troy paused for dramatic effect. “She said he just needs shaking up to snap out of it. Something about him hating the idea of ghostwriters.”

So Irene believed threatening Gavin with ghostwriters would fix his writer’s block? “You and Irene are birds of a feather,” Allie said.

“You think so?” Troy sounded pleased. “She’s been so helpful.”

“Because she needed you for her little scheme.” Allie dropped her forehead onto her free hand. “Never mind. Go back to your friends. One thing, though: I wouldn’t count on getting a part in the Julian Best movie.”

She ended the call as Troy started to sputter.

It was amazing that even from three thousand miles away, Troy and Irene could create problems for Gavin and her. She should feel some sympathy for him because of that, she supposed.

But she didn’t. He had believed her capable of betraying his trust. Even worse, to her ex-husband.

Right after he’d tried to persuade her to stay with him.

Troy was right: artistic types had problems. Big ones. And she was tired of dealing with them.

She pasted a smile on her face, stood up, and waved to Miranda, who was chatting with another woman several yards away. Then Allie bolted for the exit, making a slight detour to avoid Luke Archer, whose blond head towered over most of the crowd. She jogged down the boardwalk, dodging arriving guests, as she called Jaros from her cell phone.

“I’m not feeling well, but I don’t want to ruin Gavin’s night, so I’m just going to go home,” she said when the chauffeur answered. “Would you mind meeting me at the entrance?”

“I will be there.”

That was easier than she expected. Gavin had the ticket for her shoes, so she abandoned them, wincing as she stepped on the cold, sharp gravel when the Bentley purred up in front of her in the line of cars still ferrying guests to the party.

She wrenched open the door before Jaros could make it around to her side of the car and threw herself onto the backseat. He peered in with a worried look before he closed the door.

Enclosed in the warm, dark cocoon of luxury, Allie couldn’t fight off the anguish any longer. Great gulping sobs racked her body as her heart twisted in her chest. She was furious with Gavin, but the anger couldn’t dull the stabbing pain of knowing he didn’t care enough about her to trust her. A wave of misery threatened to break over her head and drown her in its cold, dark waters.

“You all right, Ms. Allie?” Jaros’s voice came through the intercom. How much had he heard of her crying? “You sure Mr. Gavin want you to leave without him?”

Allie pressed her fist against her mouth in an effort to stifle her sobs. She breathed in and out a few times before she could speak. “He’s—” She gulped down another sob. “He’s a big donor, so he can’t leave.” She groped around for a better excuse. “He has to make a speech.”

There was a short silence before Jaros said, “I get you home, and Ludmilla take care of you.”

Allie flinched at the thought of facing Ludmilla. The housekeeper would know that she suffered from more than an upset stomach or a headache. She would just have to run straight for the master bedroom.

Being rich had a lot of advantages, but Allie missed the privacy of her dinky little apartment where she could curl up with Pie on her lap and binge-watch bad movies while eating ice cream and crying to her heart’s content. God knew she’d done exactly that often enough during the end of her marriage.